Barack Obama’s decision to “bargain” for extension of unemployment benefits by surrendering termination of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest among us is only the most recent evidence that there’s piddling correlation between high intelligence and strong leadership.

It’s all too easy to be outraged by this latest Walter Mitty affront to presidential prowess, let alone progressive values. It’s even easier to be enraged by the “strategy” of equating tax breaks for billionaire robber barons with the down-and-out conditions of the unemployed being yoked by Wall Street’s well-rewarded recklessness.

But the conclusion more and more progressives are reaching is that the fault lies not in the president, but in ourselves for having imagined that Obama valued – never mind shared – our commitment to a more progressive society.

Instead of a new New Deal to confront an epic economic crisis, we keep getting Let’s Make a Deal with the political opposition whose hyper-conservative policies gave us multitrillion-dollar wars, staggering deficits and a crippled economy.

Among the many things the Obama White House seems to be blind to is that the fury created by making fools of your supporters is as enduring as the blind hatred of those who opposed your election in the first place.

You fool us once, shame on you; you fool us twice, the shame is ours – as is the anger that leads many among us to conclude, “I simply won’t vote for this guy again.”

Which promises to make the next round of presidential primaries a lot more interesting for Democrats than the guy waving the white flag from the White House will want them to be.